1821  ^ 


Brouunin^s  Rin 

c\nd  The  BooK 


i 
I 

I 

i 


The  person  charging  this  material  is  re- 
sponsible for  its  return  to  the  library  from 
which  it  was  withdrawn  on  or  before  the 
Latest  Date  stamped  below. 

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UNIVERSITY   OF    ILLINOIS    LIBRARY   AT  URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 


OCT 

OCT  11 


1974 


L161  — O-1096 


Prof.  ail|arlP0  H.  fd&fU 


J 


uBRAmr 

OF  THE 
•miVERSITY  OF  1LUN0I$ 


An  Essay 

ON 

ROBERT  BROWNING'S 

THE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK 

BY 

Prof.  Charles  W.  Hodell 


Published  by 

The  Boston  Browning  Society 
1911 

Gipyrighted 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2015 


https://archive.org/details/essayonrobertbroOOhode 


THE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK 


Ten  years  ago  a  party  of  Americans  were  detained  a 
fortnight  in  Venice  by  the  illness  of  one  of  their  number. 
A  nurse  was  summoned  from  a  neighboring  convent  to 
care  for  the  sufferer.  One  day  this  nurse  told  the  story 
of  an  English  Signor  to  whom  she  had  ministered  in  final 
illness  several  years  before — how  each  night,  just  before 
composing  himself  to  rest,  he  kissed  tenderly  a  gold  ring 
that  hung  from  his  watch  chain.  In  a  moment  of  what  she 
afterward  seemed  to  feel  was  unpardonable  confidence,  she 
let  slip  the  name  of  the  Signor — it  was  the  poet  Browning. 
The  Ring  thus  held  in  all  affection  had  been  purchased  for 
Mrs.  Browning  as  a  marriage-ring  during  their  early  wed- 
ded life. 


It  bears  inscribed  as  a  motto  the  Greek  word  aei,  ''ever- 
more". For  fifteen  years  it  clasped  the  finger  of  Mrs. 
Browning  as  the  symbol  of  their  union  in  spirit.  At  her 
death,  it  took  its  place  on  the  poet's  watch  chain.  It  was 
probably  regarded  as  the  dearest  relic  of  life's  best  bles- 
sing to  him.  This  ring  he  chose  as  the  symbol  for  the  fin- 
ished work  of  poetic  art,  and  it  is  named  in  the  very  title 
of  The  Ring  and  the  Book. 

Such  is  the  Ring.  What  then  is  the  Book  ?  In  the  open- 
ing book  of  the  poem  Browning  himself  has  partly  answered 


'Tis  Rome-work,  made  to  match 
(By  Castellani's  imitative  craft) 
Etrurian  circlets. 


[3] 


the  query,  and  it  is  my  pleasure  to  answer  it  more  fully  to- 
day. 

One  June  morning  of  1860 

still  fierce  mid  many  a  day  struck  calm 

Robert  Browning  after  a  word  of  goodbye  to  his  invalid 
wife  on  her  sofa,  passed  into  the  living  streets  of  Florence. 
Like  the  man  Up  at  a  Villa  he  revelled  in  the  busy  life  of 
the  workaday  world.  Like  his  poet  in  How  It  Strikes  A 
Contemporary  he  seemed  to  see  everything  as  he  passed 
along.  Through  the  marketplace  of  San  Lorenzo,  thronged 
with  hucksters  and  second-hand  dealers  driving  a  busy 
trade— a  scene  represented  by  the  poet  in  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  pieces  of  literary  photography  in  the  EngHsh 
language — he  passed, 

(Mark  the  predestination!)  when  a  Hand, 
Always  above  my  shoulder,  pushed  me  once, 

to  the  finding  of  the  old  yellow  book.  "One  glance  at  the 
lettered  back  *  *  *  And,  'Stall,'  cried  I:  a  lira  made  it 
mine."  When  Browning  told  this  story  to  Professor  Cor- 
son, he  added  the  gloss,  ''If  I  had  only  shaken  my  head 
and  replied  'too  much,  too  much',  I  might  have  had  it  for 
half  a  lira."  Thus  by  an  apparent  chance  and  at  the  ex- 
pense of  "eight  pence  English  just".  Browning  secured  this 
book  which  was  to  be  the  occasion  and  center  of  his  crea- 
tive activity  for  several  of  the  maturest  years  of  his  artistic 
mastery. 

Sixteen  years  ago  I  first  heard  my  honored  master.  Prof. 
Corson,  read  the  account  of  the  Book  in  the  first  few  hun- 
dred lines  of  the  poem.  At  the  time,  I  took  the  story  as  a 
literary  hoax,  parallel  to  the  Custom  House  Papers  of  the 
Scarlet  Letter  and   to  the    convenient  old  manuscripts 

[4] 


which  were  continually  falling  in  the  way  of  DeFoe.  But 
when  Dr.  Corson  told  me  how  he  himself  had  handled  the 
book  in  the  poet's  presence,  I  grew  curious  to  know  its 
contents.  All  I  could  find  was  Mrs.  Orr's  brief  and  inac- 
curate account.  After  momentary  glimpses  of  the  volume 
in  Balliol  library  in  1895  and  1899,  I  was  at  last  permitted 
by  the  courtesy  of  the  college  to  make  a  complete  transcript 
in  1902.  Subsequent  years  have  shown  more  fully  the  im- 
portance of  the  study  of  book  and  poem  side  by  side  as  a 
revelation  of  the  creative  genius  of  Robert  Browning.  At 
last  through  the  generous  aid  of  the  Carnegie  Institution  of 
Washington,  I  have  had  the  privilege  of  making  the  old 
yellow  book  accessible  to  all  who  care  to  see  it. 

This  old  yellow  book  is  a  soiled  and  bloody  page  from 
the  long  forgotten  criminal  annals  of  Rome  two  centuries 
ago,  a  crime  kindred  to  those  exploited  by  flamboyant  yel- 
low journalism  for  a  day,  but  giving  way  ere  long  to  other 
sensations  and  at  last  fading  into  the  forgotten.  Yet  on 
January  3,  1698,  all  Rome  was  athrill  with  the  ghastly  gos- 
sip concerning  the  murder  of  the  night  before,  and  San  Lo- 
renzo in  Lucina  was  filled  with  a  gaping  crowd  pushing  in 
to  have  their  gaze  at  the  mutilated  Comparini,  lying  there 
at  the  altar.  And  toward  evening  when  word  flashed 
through  the  City  that  the  police  officers  had  brought  back 
the  five  assassins,  the  throng  surged  around  Guido  and  the 
detail  of  police  as  they  moved  toward  the  New  Prisons. 
For  six  weeks  winehouse  and  street  corner  gossip  were 
busied  with  the  procedure  of  the  criminal  courts  against 
the  Five.  Then  on  February  22,  another  stirring  day,  the 
five  were  headed  or  hanged,  "decently  and  in  order",  before 
one  of  the  largest  crowds  (according  to  a  contemporary) 
that  had  ever  witnessed  an  execution  in  Rome. 

Preceding  and  leading  up  to  this  assassination  and  ex- 
ecution there  were  four  years  of  domestic  turmoil  between 

[5] 


the  bourgeois  Comparini  and  the  impoverished  decadent 
but  noble  Franceschini,  two  houses  brought  into  alHance 
through  the  barter  and  sale  in  marriage  of  the  child  Pom- 
pilia.  A  sordid  story  showing  human  nature  in  its  mean- 
est selfishness,  a  malicious  and  crafty  squabble  over  some 
ten  thousand  scudi,  without  regard  to  the  child-wife  whose 
position  was  pitiable  and  desperate.  In  the  counterplay  of 
trick  against  trick  and  of  hate  and  greed  against  each 
other  no  one  spared  her.  Her  foster-parents  and  her  hus- 
band fought  through  the  law  courts  and  by  infamous  libel 
to  overcome  each  other.  When  the  seventeen  year  old  wife 
made  her  escape  from  the  Franceschini  palace  in  company 
with  a  twenty-four  year  old  priest,  some  semblance  of  truth 
seemed  to  be  given  to  Guido's  complaints;  the  subsequent 
adultery  trial  was  savory  gossip  in  the  Rome  of  that  day. 

You  may  thus  see  that  the  names  of  Guido  and  Abate 
Paolo,  of  the  Comparini,  of  Pompilia  and  Caponsacchi  were 
flung  cynically  about  Rome  with  sneer  and  innuendo.  Yet 
after  a  few  weeks,  or  months  at  the  most,  all  of  them  were 
thrust  into  the  background.  They  were  soon  forgotten. 
Long  ere  the  flight  of  160  years  when  Browning  at  last 
found  the  book,  these  persons  and  their  story  had  faded 
utterly  from  human  memory.  The  sole  record  which  lay 
between  them  and  the  utter  extinction  that  overtakes  the 
memory  of  almost  all  things  human,  was  the  time-stained, 
vellum-covered  book  that  fell  into  Browning's  hands. 
"^This  old  yellow  book  is  not  at  all  an  ordinary  published 
volume,  nor  is  it  the  record  of  an  historian  or  a  fictionist 
preserving  a  true  story.  l(  It  Js^^w^^er's  file  of  documents 
— a  case,  assembled  as  a  legal  precedenlTon  the  still  much 
disputed  point  of  murder  by  reason  of  an  injured  sense  of 
honor.  The  twenty  and  more  single  parts  thus  assembled 
were  of  course  never  duplicated  as  a  collection.  The  vol- 
ume was  always  essentially  unique.    The  collector  wa§ 

[6]  '  ' 


probably  the  Signer  Cencini,  a  Florentine  lawyer,  who 
seems  to  have  been  an  attorney  for  the  Franceschini.  In 
his  library  the  volume  probably  first  gathered  dust.  No  one 
can  now  tell  its  history  during  the  silent  century  and  a  half 
before  Robert  Browning  found  it  on  a  market  barrow.''^ 

A  few  words  then  in  description  of  its  contents.  ^There 
is  a  set  of  fourteen  pamphlets,  containing  the  official  record 
of  the  Franceschini  murder  trial  as  it  passed  from  attor- 
neys to  judges  in  1698.  These  pamphlets  were  probably 
printed  over  night  or  between  sessions  of  the  court,  and 
bear  the  imprint  of  the  official  Papal  Press.  Like  our  own 
briefs  today  they  were  printed  in  but  few  copies  and  had 
no  circulation  j^utside  of  the  court.  In  the  eleven  argu- 
ments by  feur  lawyers  we  have  alLbut  the  complete  plead- 
ings for  andagainst  the  accused  during  the  month  of  the 
murder  trial.  They  present  in  the  crabbed  Xatin  of  the 
law  courts  the  technical,  sophistical  argumentation  of  the 
case.  There  is  cunning  accumulation  of  precedent  and 
search  for  the  technical  loophole  of  escape,  the  shrewd 
give-and-take  of  a  masterly  intellectual  game.  One  em- 
inent criminal  judge  who  has  read  them  through  declares 
them^tojbe  masterpieces  of  shrewd  practice.  ^ut_juch 
human  assets  as  pity ,  j ustice,  jrevereiirp^  mhl^--ffl^ignatioa'"' 
arejitterly  wanting.  These  lawyers  had  no  concern  with 
the  equity  of  the  proceedings  and  were  evidently  interested 
in  the  case  as  a  chance  to  show  their  own  skill. 

Three  other  pamphlets  of  the  book  present,  in  part,  the 
testimony  of  the  trial.  We  have  here  the  fragments  of  evi- 
dence presented  to  Guido's  Judges  on  which  they  were  to 
base  their  final  sentence.  There  are  letters  of  the  Gover- 
nor, and  of  the  Bishop,  and  of  several  citizens  of  Arezzo, 
two  letters  from  Pompilia  to  Abate  Paolo,  the  forged  love 
letters  which  Guido  claimed  to  have  found  at  the  Inn  of 
Castelnuovo,  the  birth  record  of  Pompilia,  the  order  for 

[7] 


her  transfer  from  prison  to  the  home  of  her  foster-parents, 
and,  of  far  more  importance,  the  sworn  testimony  of  Pom- 
pilia,  of  Caponsacchi,  and  of  the  witnesses  of  PompiHa's 
four  days'  dying.  Here  is  crude  fact  and  misstatement  with- 
out explanation  or  interpretation,  and  subject  to  countless 
fluctuations  under  the  stress  of  conflicting  interpretations. 

The  closing  pamphlet  is  the  final  decree  of  court  eight 
months  after  the  murder,  which  asserts  that  Pompilia  was 
absolutely  innocent  from  the  incriminating  charges  brought 
against  her.  Browning  refers  to  this  specifically  in  Book 
XII  and  paraphrases  its  opening  lines  closely. 
/  Beside  these  sixteen  oflicial  documents,  the  book  in- 
cludes two  anonymous  Italian  narratives,  evidently  put 
forth  for  and  against  Guido  before  the  bar  of  current  opin- 
ion in  the  streets.  They  were  written  either  by  the  law- 
yers or  their  hacks  and  were  an  appeal  from  the  courts  to 
public  sentiment.  In  their  strong  controlling  prejudices 
for  or  against  Guido  they  distort  fact  and  motive  freely 
and  contain  a  very  distinct  suggestion  of  Half  Rome  and 
Other  Half  Rome. 

To  this  printed  material  the  lawyer  Cencini  added  cer- 
tain manuscript  contributions  bearing  on  the  case — three 
personal  letters  from  Rome  with  fresh  news  of  Guido's  ex- 
ecution, a  transcript  of  the  sentence  in  the  Tuscan  courts 
against  Pompilia,  for  her  flight  from  her  husband's  home, 
and  a  title-page  and  index.'l^ 

Browning  pasted  on  the  front  inside  cover  a  drawing  of 
the  Franceschini  arms  sent  him  by  his  friend  Kirkup,  and 
on  the  flyleaf  placed  his  signature  and  a  motto  from  Pindar: 
"Now  for  me  the  Muse  keeps  her  mightiest  shaft  in  store," 
a  motto  significant  of  Browning's  own  opinion  that  he 
found  here  the  greatest  of  all  his  opportunities  as  an  artist. 
Injhis  faith  he  gave  to  the  volume  some  of  the  best  years  of 
his  life.  "  /  ^ 

[8] 


^As  will  be  seen  readily  from  the  account  given  above,  the 
record  of  the  murder  is  confused,  contradictory,  hidden  by 
sophistry;  it  is  without  form  and  void  from  the  standpoint 
of  literary  art;  it  might  seem  essentially  revolting  to  the 
artistic  instincts.  Why  then  did  it  appeal  so  immediately 
and  so  powerfully  to  Browning?  That  it  did  so  is  plainly 
evident  from  the  author's  own  words  in  the  poem.  Scarcely 
had  the  lira  passed  to  the  dealer  when  Browning  rivet- 
ted  his  eyes  on  his  newfound  treasure  as  he  stood  there  by 
the  fountain.  With  unbroken  attention  he  passed  out  of 
the  busy  market  and  along  the  well  known  streets  to  Casa 
Guidi.  There  all  afternoon  he  *'read  and  read"  until  at 
last 

The  book  was  shut  and  done  with'^nd  laid  by 
On  the  cream-coloured  massive  agate,  *  *  * 
And  from  the  reading  *  *  * 
I  turned,  to  free  myself  and  find  the  world, 
And  stepped  out  on  the  narrow  terrace.^ 

As  he  stood  beneath  the  flash  of  the  June  lightning  out  of  a 
black  sky,  he  recreated  by  power  of  imagination  the  long- 
forgotten  tragedy. 

The  life  in  me  abolished  the  death  of  things. 

Deep  calling  unto  deep:   as  then  and  there 

Acted  itself  over  again  once  more 

The  tragic  piece.    I  saw  with  my  own  eyes 

In  Florence  as  I  trod  the  terrace,  *  *  * 

How  it  had  run,  this  round  from  Rome  to  Rome. 

By  that  one  moment  of  insight  the  poet  recreated  at  least 
potentially  the  tragedy  which  he  was  to  give  to  the  world 
eight  years  later. 

Why  did  Browning  respond  with  this  immediate  inter- 
est to  a  book  which  would  have  been  dull  and  lifeless  to 
many  a  reader?    For  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  this 

[9] 


4 


unique  volume,  in  spite  of  the  apparent  chance  in  its  find- 
ing, could  hardly  have  fallen  to  a  man  in  all  western  Eu- 
rope as  capable  of  responding  to  it,  and  there  is  none  in 
whom  such  an  interest  would  have  transcended  mere  legal 
and  antiquarian  curiosity  and  would  have  effloresced  in  a 
great  work  of  art.  The  very  call  of  this  volume  to  the  per- 
sonality of  Robert  Browning  is  significant,  and  like  all  se- 
crets of  personality,  lies  beyond  analysis  and  the  scalpel. 
Yet  we  may  well  consider  the  question  for  the  light  it  will 
throw  on  Robert  Browning. 

We  learn  in  the  Memories  of  Mr.  Herbert  Paul  that 

frowning  was  interested  in  all  the  sensational  murder  tri- 
als of  his  day,  not  the  hideous  blood-and-bones  curiosity 
which  drives  thousands  through  ghastly  journalistic  records 
of  calamity  and  crime,  we  may  be  sure.     But  this  deep 

Vsearcher  of  the  soul  turned  again  and  again  to  the  problem 
bf  human  evil,  not  merely  in  the  villain's  own  personality, 

/but  in  the  total  scheme  of  things.  What  do  these  bad  hearts 
mean?    What  is  the  placg  of  evil  in  a  world  ruled  by  a 

\  benevolent^T)eity?  How  is  the  soul  of  man  thwarted  into 
such  deformity  and  depravity?  The  problem-poet  of  the 
human  soul  had  necessarily  to  face  this  greatest  of  all  prob- 
lems— the  depravity  of  the  evil  will.  It  was  natural  for 
Browning  to  inquire:  Whence  came  Guido?  Why  this 
greed  and  brutality?  How  came  it  that  Guido  was  finally 
seized  within  hairbreadth  of  escape  and  punished?  Why 
all  the  mesh  of  greed  in  the  society  surrounding  victim  and 
villain  alike  in  the  tragedy?  Why  all  that  calling  of  right 
wrong  and  of  wrong  right?  Why  the  Bishop  sealing  with 
official  stamp  of  approval  Guido's  course  of  brutality? 
Why  Pompilia's  saintliness  stained  by  the  hideous  doubt 
of  criminal  liaison  ?  Surely  the  problem  of  human  evil  pre- 
sented itself  most  interestingly  in  the  record  of  the  Book. 

\Browning  had  previously  created  many  a  fictitious  picture 

[lo] 


of  evil.    But  here  in  authentic  documents  was  the  positive  \ 
record  of  ignoble,  brutal  crime, — crime  which  had  shown  a  j 
good  face  to  the  world  and  had  made  good  effort  to  escape  [ 
punishment.   And  around  the  central  splash  of  blood  could 
be  descried  a  sordid,  heartless  world,  which  had  shown  no 
sign  of  pity  for  Pompilia.    The  "subtlest  assertor  of  the  . 
soul"  had  here  a  problem  of  the  human  soul  as  difficult  to/ 
understand  as  any  he  had  ever  offered  his  readers. 

Still  further  the  record  of  the  Book  did  in  its  crude  and 
technical  way  jusjt.  what  Browning  had  often  done  in 
art.  ^|Tf  searched  intently  the  outward  and  obvious  inci^ 
dent  and  act  for  the  secret  motive,  j  These  lawyers  are 
Imsied  professionally  ki  interrogating  and  interpreting  the 
fact  before  them.  What,  they  ask,  did  Pompilia  mean  by 
the  sword  thrust  at  her  husband's  life?  Why  was  the 
street  door  opened  to  the  assassins  at  the  mention  of  Ca- 
ponsacchi's  name?  The  mere  succession  of  narrative  in  the 
book  gives  place  to  detailed  analysis  of  motive.  This  is 
what  Browning  had  done  repeatedly  in  his  art.  The  ma- 
terial, crude  as  it  was,  came  aptly  to  his  peculiar  bent  of 
mind.  H^woald  lay  emphasis  not  on  fact,  but  on  the  soul-t^ 
meaning  of  fact.  Such  had  been  his  task  in  Paracelsus,  and 
m  FrnJ^^y  and  thus  he  was  still  to  do  in  Ivan  Ivanovitch 
and  Pheidippides. 

Nor  is  it  improbable  that  Shelley's  poetic  handling  of  the 
similar  story  of  the  Cenci  may  have  served  in  part  to  ar- 
rest Browning's  attention,  though  Browning  owes  nothing 
to  Shelley  in  treatment  and  interpretation. 

But  while  there  are  probably  a  number  of  different 
sources  for  Browning's  peculiar  interest  in  the  Book,  I  feel  J 
convinced  that  Pompilia  was  the  chief  attraction  of  theL 
book  to  him.  Although  the  facts  of  her  pitiable  life  are] 
strewn  all  through  the  Book,  the  chief  testimony  to  her/ 
personality  is  found  in  the  affidavit  of  Fra  Celestino  mad^ 

["] 


four  days  after  the  death  of  Pompilia.  The  good  priest 
had  ministered  to  the  wounded  and  dying  wife  for  four 
days,  and  he  bore  the  following  sworn  testimony  to  her 
character : 

I,  the  undersigned,  barefooted  Augustinian  priest,  pledge  my 
faith  that  inasmuch  as  I  was  present,  helping  Signora  Francesca 
Comparini  from  the  first  instant  of  her  pitiable  case,  even  to 
the  very  end  of  her  life,  I  say  and  attest  on  my  priestly  oath, 
in  the  presence  of  the  God  who  must  judge  me,  that  to  my  own 
confusion  I  have  discovered  and  marveled  at  an  innocent  and 
saintly  conscience  in  that  ever-blessed  child.  During  the  four 
days  she  survived,  when  exhorted  by  me  to  pardon  her  husband, 
she  replied  with  tears  in  her  eyes  and  with  a  placid  and  com- 
passionate voice :  "May  Jesus  pardon  him,  as  I  have  already 
done  with  all  my  heart."  But  what  is  more  to  be  wondered  at 
is  that,  although  she  suffered  great  pain,  I  never  heard  her  speak 
an  offensive  or  impatient  word,  nor  show  the  slightest  outward 
vexation  either  toward  God  or  those  near  by.  But  ever  sub- 
missive to  the  Divine  Will,  she  said:  "May  God  have  pity  on 
me,"  in  such  a  way,  indeed,  as  would  have  been  incompatible 
with  a  soul  that  was  not  at  one  with  God.  To  such  a  union 
one  does  not  attain  in  a  moment,  but  rather  by  the  habit  of  years. 

I  say  further  that  I  have  always  seen  her  self-restrained,  and 
especially  during  medical  treatment.  On  these  occasions,  if  her 
habit  of  life  had  not  been  good,  she  would  not  have  minded 
certain  details  around  her  with  a  modesty  well-noted  and  mar- 
veled at  by  me ;  nor  otherwise  could  a  young  girl  have  been  in 
the  presence  of  so  many  men  with  such  modesty  and  calm  as 
that  in  which  the  blessed  child  remained  while  dying.  And  you 
may  well  believe  what  the  Holy  Spirit  speaks  by  the  mouth  of 
the  Evangelist,  in  the  words  of  St.  Matthew,  chapter  7 :  "  An 
evil  tree  can  not  bring  forth  good  fruit."  Note  that  he  says  "can 
not,"  and  not  "  does  not " ;  that  is,  making  it  impossible  to  infer 
the  ability  to  do  perfect  deeds  when  oneself  is  imperfect  and 
tainted  with  vice.  You  should  therefore  say  that  this  girl  was 
all  goodness  and  modesty,  since  with  all  ease  and  all  gladness 
she  performed  virtuous  and  modest  deeds  even  at  the  very  end 
of  her  life.  Moreover  she  has  died  with  strong  love  for  God, 
with  great  composure,  with  all  the  sacred  sacraments  of  the 

[.2] 


Church,  and  with  the  admiration  of  all  bystanders,  who  blessed 
her  as  a  saint.  I  do  not  say  more  lest  I  be  taxed  with  partiality. 
I  know  very  well  that  God  alone  is  the  searcher  of  hearts,  but 
I  also  know  that  from  the  abundance  of  the  heart  the  mouth 
speaks;  and  that  my  great  St  Augustine  says:  "As  the  life, 
so  its  end." 

Therefore,  having  noted  in  that  ever  blessed  child  saintly  words, 
virtuous  deeds,  most  modest  acts,  and  the  death  of  a  soul  in 
great  fear  of  God,  for  the  relief  of  my  conscience  I  am  com- 
pelled to  say,  and  can  not  do  otherwise,  that  necessarily  she  has 
ever  been  a  good,  modest,  and  honorable  girl,  etc. 
This  tenth  of  January,  1698. 

I,  Fra  Celestino  Angelo  of  St.  Anna, 
barefooted  Augustinian,  affirm 
as  I  have  said  above,  with  my 
•  own  hand. 

We  can  imagine  the  thrill  of  pity  and  indignation  which 
Browning  felt  as  he  read  on,  from  the  sordid  record  which 
had  preceded,  into  this  convincing  word  of  vindication. 
Browning  wasaman^  of  strongly  chivalrous  nature.  _  H£ 
had  rebelled  already  against  the  ordinary  version  of  The 
G/oz^gTandjnJiis  own  yersioiLJiad^ung  the  glove  back  in 
De  Corge^s  face  with  no  small  emphasjs.  He  had  created 
Count  Gismond  andTiis  gallant  rescue  of  the  lady,  as  an 
example  of  the  best  chivalry  of  the  olden  day.  He  is  warm 
in  his  admiration  of  the  plebeian  chivalry  of  the  threadbare 
attorney  Valence  who  championed  first,  starving  Cleves  and 
then  his  Duchess  Colombe.  With  even  more_spirit  he  drew 
the  humble  but  gallant  adoration  of  the  old  huntsman_whq 

had  assisted  the  flight  of  the  Duchess.     Such  flashes  .of  „ 

BFowfuhg^s  chivalrous  instinct  had  forerug^his  gallant  re^ 
cue  of  Pompilia.  In  the  rS^brd  of  "the  book'  he  found  a 
wronged  and  murdered  child  wife,  who  had  passed  from  a  \ 
vicious  birth  through  a  cruel  and  depraved  nightmare  of 
wedded  life  into  a  flight  which  seemed  to  compromise  her 
character  and  brought  on  her  innuendo  and  shame,  and  who 


after  suffering  brutal  assassination  had  passed  into  death 
with  such  patience  and  serenity  that  the  attendants  blessed 
her  as  a  saint.  Yet  Rome's  courts  and  mobs  had  handled 
roughly  and  cynically  this  "lily-thing  to  frighten  at  a 
bruise".  A  Browning  to  the  rescue!  This  was  probably 
Browning's  chief  motive  in  writing  The  Ring  and  the  Book, 
apart  from  the  artist's  inherent  sense  of  a  need  to  express 
himself.  He  felt  almost  passionately  for  her,  and  was  a 
rival  of  his  own  Caponsacchi.  This  feeling  carries  him  be- 
yond the  artist's  aloofness  into  open  advocacy. 

Yet  though  Browning  thus  responded  immediately  to 
Pompilia's  cry,  he  seems  for  the  time  to  have  had  little 
thought  of  using  the  material  artistically.  For  a  period  of 
several  years  before  and  after  his  wife's  death,  Browning 
wrote  little.  As  he  slowly  recovered  from  the  shock  of  her 
death,  he  prepared  the  Dramatis  Personae, — 1864.  During 
these  years  of  literary  silence  he  told  the  Franceschini  story 
to  many  of  his  friends,  with  the  persistency  of  the  Ancient 
Mariner : 

I  used  to  tell  the  tale,  turn  gay  to  grave, 
But  lacked  a  listener  seldom. 

First  he  turned  the  material  over  to  Miss  Ogle  for  a  his- 
torical novel,  and  there  was  a  novel  in  the  making.  Later 
he  offered  it  in  the  same  way  to  Trollope;  and  Allingham 
says  the  subject  was  offered  to  Tennyson  also.  "At  last," 
as  Browning  remarked  casually  to  Prof.  Corson,  "as  they 
did  nothing  with  it,  I  made  The  Ring  and  the  Book". 

According  to  Wm.  M.  Rossetti,  the  plan  of  using  the  ma- 
terial came  to  Browning  suddenly  during  the  summer  va- 
cation at  Bayonne.  He  did  not  set  himself  continuously  at 
the  large  work  till  1864,  though  a  letter  of  September,  1862, 
makes  clear  reference  to  it.  He  saw  the  full  plan  of  the 
monologues  from  the  beginning  and  wrote  the  poem  con- 
secutively as  it  stands,  devoting  three  hours  each  morning 

[h] 


regularly  to  his  task.  Allingham  speaks  of  a  15,000  line 
poem  in  1865,  and  at  the  beginning  of  1868  saw  the  com- 
pleted manuscript.  Browning  published  his  work  later  in 
this  year  and  in  the  beginning  of  1869. 

Let  us  now  turn  back  for  a  time  to  face  with  Browning 
the  majojipiabkmLof  the  choice  of  an  art  form.  What  lit- 
erary genre  could  best  harmonize  and  embody" the  material 
before  him  ?  The  artist's  answer  to  this  all-important  prob- 
lem controls  the  whole  future  treatment  of  his  subject.  He 
may  hamper  his  creative  exercise  with  many  forms  of  un- 
organic  technical  difficulties  and  may  force  himself  into 
speaking  with  a  voice  unnatural  to  himself.  He  is  peculiarly 
liable  to  this  if  he  is  devoted  to  classic  models.  On  the 
other  hand  by  free  intelligent  use  of  an  accepted  model,  he 
may  have  leisure  to  spend  his  creative  energies  in  other  di- 
rections. Browning  above  all  other  important  poets  of  the 
Victorian  era  was  free  in  matters  of  form ;  some  have  crit- 
icized him  as  lawless.  He  seldom  used  other  men's  succes- 
ses as  patterns;  he  seldom  attempted  to  repeat  the  formal 
lines  of  his  own  successes.  He  established  new  forms  and 
new  patterns.  One  of  the  causes  of  his  unintelligibility  to 
his  critics  was  that  they  tried  to  measure  him  by  the  old 
patterns  which  he  had  rejected.  They  had  not  the  critical 
originality  to  follow  him  in  his  significant  new  art  forms. 
Much  unintelligent  criticism  has  been  ^pent  on  The  Ring 
and  the  Book  by  those  who  have  criticized  it  as  an  attempted 
epic  or  narrative.  I  repeat,  much  that  is  fundamental  in 
the  understanding  of  the  poem  is  involved  in  this  question 
of  the  literary  form  chosen  for  the  Franceschini  story. 

Browning  must  have  seen,  at  the  very  outset,  the  possibil- 
ity of  a  poetic  tragedy,  and  Shelley's  Cenci  would  point  in 
that  direction.  But  Browning,  after  fair  trial,  had  long  be- 
fore abandoned  hope  of  a  successful  tragedy,  and  probably^ 

[■5] 


/ felt  that  he  could  never  go  beyond  A  Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon. 
.  Still  further,  the  story  was  intricate,  minute  and  subtle, 
.  rather  than  large  and  catastrophic, — ^masses  of  the  perplex- 
L4ng,  ignoble  truth  could  have  no  place  in  tragedy.   The  time 
scheme  was  too  long,  the  motive  was  obscure,  the  action 
was  seldom  obvious  and  continuous.   There  were  almost  in- 
superable difficulties  in  the  way  of  using  the  material  closely 
in  tragedy. 

There  was  also  opportunity,  as  Browning  felt,  for  a  his- 
torical novel.  The  spaciousness,  the  freedom,  the  demo- 
cratic inclusiveness  and  analytic  possibilities  of  the  novel 
were  all  inviting  to  such  a  subject.  But  Browning  was  a 
poet  and  not  a  prose  yyriter  by  native  b^rirar^aF  easily  be 

**^enlriliis  attenypts_al_^ro^^  He  thought  in  the  elliptical, 
impassioned  style  of  the  poet.  Yet  while  Browning  could 
hardly  have  written  a  good  novel  on  the  subject,  his  own 
knowledge  of  novelistic  technique  has  entered  into  his  art  in 
this  poem  again  and  again. 

He  might  have  turned  to  protracted  poetic  narrative,  the 
versified  romance.  But  Browning  was  little  of  a  storyteller 
in  verse,  and  has  told  few  stories  which  will  be  approved 

"-■mer^iy-^as-storie^  Story  fpr  him  was  incidental,  character 
wasessential.  Great  interspaces  of  story  were  quite  negli- 
gible from  his  standpoint.  So  he  could  hardly  have  written 
a  connected  poetic  narrative  of  the  Franceschini  crime. 

Browning  did  in  fact  what  he  had  often  done  before.  He 
made  a  ''strange  art  of  an  art  familiar",  that  is,  he  reshaped 
his  art  of  monologue  writing  after  carefully  studying  the 
material  he  wished  to  present.  He  planned  what  we  may 
well  call,  in  lieu  of  an  established  critical  term,  the  multi- 
monologue,  or  the  work  made  up  of  successive  monologues 
repeating  the  same  material  from  a  series  of  different 
standpoints.  The  regular  drama  tells  a  story  from  varying 
standpoints  as  it  interprets  successively  the  incident  and 

[.6] 


motive  through  the  lips  of  the  dramatis  personae ;  but  each 
speaker  carries  the  story  forward  from  his  cue,  rather  than 
repeats  what  has  already  been  said.  Browning  by  his  plan, 
however,  could  unfold  the  story  at  full  length  from  one 
significant  point  of  view  after  another.  Browning  had  never 
employed  this  method  previously  in  his  monologue  writ- 
ing, though  it  is  easy  to  see  that  he  might  have  told  of  the 
Flight  of  the  Duchess  from  the  lips  of  the  Duke,  of  the  old 
Duchess,  of  the  Queen  of  the  Gipsies,  or  of  the  young 
Duchess.  He  must  often  have  faced  thus  a  choice  of  one  of 
several  standpoints  for  a  monologue  story  in  the  making. 
Why  then  did  Browning  decide  to  tell  the  story  over  and 
over  again  instead  of  choosing  one  significant  point  of 
view? 

Browning's  fundamental  reason,  as  I  understand  it,  wa§\ 
his  desire  to  tell  the  whole  truth  of  the  story,  coupled  with  ^ 
his  matured,  philosophic  sense  of  the  relativity  of  truth  to 
personality.    Browning  had  before  him  a  chaos  of  con- 
flicting data,  incapable  of  being  reduced  to  any  of  the  for- 
mal limitations  of  continuous  story.  As  he  repeated  the  nar- 
rative from  his  own  standpoint  to  his  friends,  he  found 
they  took  diverse  attitudes.    Carlyle  for  example  believed  \ 
that  Caponsacchi  and  Pompilia  were  guilty  of  criminal  in-  / 
trigue.   One  of  my  friends  has  been  strongly  moved  by  the  I 
sense  of  Guido's  rights  in  the  matter,  and  has  found  him  ] 
hardly  blameworthy.    Browning  realized  that  such  a  story 
was  capable  of  numberless  interpretations,  which  would  be 
based  on  the  interpreter's  personal  treasury  of  memory  and 
ideal.    He  determined  therefore,  instead  of  resting  satisfied  | 
with  a  single  interpretation  of  the  story,  to  do  what  was  far  / 
more  difficult,  to  reproduce  the  story  in  all  the  seething,  j 
changing,  vital  interplay  of  action,  motive,  and  character./ 
This  is  life  and  not  art,  life  as  intricate  as  it  is  revealed  by/ 
the  subtlest  novelists.   To  present  it  thus,  alt  previous  poet^ 

[■7] 


( ical  forms  were  inadequate.  As  it  is,  in  the  poem  the  reader 
J  sits  almost  as  a  spectator  of  real  life,  forced  to  judge  of 
/  the  current  of  life  from  his  own  standpoint,  and  he  must 
j  finally,  by  a  sweeping  synthesis  of  imagination,  grasp  the 
\  meaning  borne  home  to  himself.    This  challenge  to  the 
reader's  active,  creative  participation  is  one  of  the  most  in- 
teresting features  of  the  genre  thus  established.    Let  me 
call  your  attention  to  the  figure  of  the  landscape  and  of  the 
glass  ball  given  in  the  latter  part  of  the  first  book  of  the 
\poem. 

But  it  is  worth  noting  that  the  multi-monologue  form  was 
suggested  by  the  very  book  itself.  In  it  you  may  read  op- 
posing versions  of  the  story  in  whole  or  in  part,  each  of 
them  tinged  and  partly  falsified  by  the  personal  equation. 
The  Governor,  the  Bishop,  the  serving  maid,  the  neighbors 
in  Arezzo  give  account  of  the  domestic  broils  in  the  Fran- 
ceschini  palace.  Pompilia  and  Caponsacchi  make  parallel 
affidavits  as  to  their  reasons  for  flight,  and  these  are  inter- 
preted by  the  lawyers.  Each  brief  presented  in  the  trial  is 
a  biassed  account.  Above  all  the  Book  contains  two  anti- 
,  thetical  Italian  narratives,  the  basis  of  Half  Rome  and 
Other  Half  Rome,  and  Browning  had  before  him  still  a 
third  account  from  a  different  source.  Truth  thus  lay  brok- 
enly and  chaotically  in  the  Book,  subject  to  many  shades  of 
personal  modification.  How  strongly  this  must  have 
brought  home  to  Browning  the  line  of  Merlin 

The  truth  is  this  to  thee  and  that  to  me. 

Browning  may  be  said  to  have  invented  the  multi-monologue 
form  to  give  adequate  presentation  to  the  variety  of  view  he 
found  in  the  book. 

I  have  spoken  thus  at  length  of  Browning's  art  form,  as  it 
illustrates  the  high  plastic  adaptiveness  which  leads  the 
master-artist  to  abandon  the  mere  patterns  of  literature  to 

[.8] 


i- 


create  new  and  significant  types.  I  should  like  to  develop 
and  illustrate  the  masterly  skill  with  which  Browning  creates 
the  countless  details  which  fill  in  the  plan  he  had  wrought. 
But  we  must  pass  on  to  other  matters. 

We  proceed  now  to  consider  Browning's  way  of  using 
the  chaotic,  but  veritable  fact  of  the  book  which  chance  had 
thrown  in  his  way.  This  may  be  summarized  as  scrupulous, 
painstaking  regard  for  fact,  lifted  and  illuminated  by  imagi- 
nation, in  vitalizing  and  interpreting  fact  as  he  found  it. 
'^'Y^is  accuracy  to  the  matter  of  fact  in  the  Book  can  hardly 
be  overstated.  Mrs.  Orr  says  he  had  read  the  old  volume 
through  eight  times  before  he  set  to  writing  the  poem.  This 
means  of  course  that  he  had  mastered  every  significant  de- 
tail, no  matter  how  small.  No  historian  could  have  been 
more  painstaking  and  conscientious  as  to  his  matters  of  fact. 
He  tells  in  the  poem  of  his  unsuccessful  search  at  Rome  for 
-more  light  on  the  case.  He  evidently  did  not  make  such 
search  at  Arezzo,  or  he  might  have  found  a  few  additional 
fragments — that  Caponsacchi  was  24  years  of  age  and 
Guido  about  forty  at  the  time  of  the  actual  incidents.  He 
did  find  in  London  one  additional  pamphlet  of  somewhat 
questionable  historical  authenticity;  but  he  accepted  its  in- 
teresting details  of  additional  fact  and  interwove  them  into 
the  poem.  This  secondary  source,  which  Browning  does 
not  mention  in  the  poem,  was  given  in  part  by  Mrs.  Orr  in 
her  Handbook,  but  I  have  now  offered  it  in  full  to  the  read- 
ers of  Browning. 

Having  gained  his  facts  he  was  more  scrupulously  truth- 
ful in  his  adherence  to  them  than  most  artists  feel  obliged 
to  be.  He  took  no  such  capital  liberties  with  fact  as  Scott 
and  Shakespeare  continually  and  advisedly  do  in  their  sto- 
ries of  history.  He  told  his  own  story  according  to  ascer- 
tained fact  before  him.  He  shirked  no  fact,  he  juggled 
with  no  fact,  nor  would  he  shut  eyes  to  inconvenient 

[•9] 


and  troublesome  fact.  He  took  advantage  of  his.  artistic 
method  to  give  variant  versions  of  fact  from  the  lips  of 
the  various  speakers.  I  repeat  it,  his  method  is  that  of  the 
historian,  frugal  and  conscientious  of  the  fact  before  him. 

But  all  of  this  matter  needs  more  specific  illustration. 
Thirty-three  names  of  persons  in  the  poem  are  taken  un- 
modified from  the  Book.  These  include  every  important 
person  in  the  Poem.  Even  Pompilia's  long  name  on  which 
she  dwells  for  a  moment  at  the  beginning  of  her  monologue 
is  real,  not  fictitious. 

Likewise  every  locality  in  the  story  in  its  round  "from^ 
Rome  to  Rome"  is  part  of  the  documentary  record.  Such 
are  the  two  homes  of  the  Comparini  in  Via  Vittoria  and  Via 
Paolina,  the  church  of  San  Lorenzo,  the  barbershop  in  Pi- 
azza Colonna,  the  theatre  in  Arezzo,  Caponsacchi's  church 
of  the  Pieve  and  all  the  rest.  These  localities  were  merely 
named,  not  described  in  the  book;  Browning  in  many  cases 
amplified  the  locality  descriptively  from  his  own  observa- 
tion of  the  place. 

Again  all  dates  and  the  whole  time-scheme  of  the  story 
are  taken  with  scrupulous  accuracy.    Instead  of  stating 
Pompilia's  age  approximately.  Browning  makes  her  say 
I  am  just  seventeen  years  and  five  months  old, 
And,  if  I  lived  one  day  more,  three  full  weeks. 

This  is  a  simple  problem  in  mathematics  between  her  birth- 
day, July  17,  1680,  and  the  day  of  her  monologue,  Jan.  6, 
1698.  Pompilia  speaks  of  her  happy  two  weeks  between 
the  birth  of  her  babe  and  her  assassination — that  is  from 
Dec.  18  to  Jan.  2.  Caponsacchi  in  arranging  the  flight  from 
Arezzo  for  the  night  of  April  22  says :  "There's  new  moon 
this  eve,"  implying  that  the  latter  part  of  the  night  will  be 
dark  and  suitable  for  their  escape.  This  date  was  indeed 
new  moon  and  Browning  had  taken  pains  to  have  an  as- 
tronomer friend  verify  the  matter.    This  sort  of  accuracy 

[20] 


I 


is  almost  unprecedented  among  the  poets.  One  significant 
and  interesting  change  of  the  actual  date  must  be  mentioned : 
the  flight  took  place  in  fact  about  midnight,  April  28-9, 
which  the  poet  changes  to  22-23.  He  also  modifies  adjacent 
dates  and  days  of  the  week  to  correspond.  In  thus  placing 
the  rescue  of  Pompilia  on  St.  George's  day,  the  poet  has 
plainly  paralleled  the  story  with  that  of  the  famous  knight 
of  old  England.  This  interpretation  is  assured  by  the  fact 
that  Browning  refers  to  Caponsacchi  five  times  as  St. 
George. 

In  like  manner  the  remaining  facts  and  incidents  of  the 
story  are  drawn  from  the  same  nondescript  treasure-house. 
There  the  poet  found  the  story  of  Pompilia's  shameful 
birth,  of  Guido's  failure  and  Abate  Paolo's  success  at  Rome, 
of  the  domestic  broils  at  Arezzo,  of  the  comfit- throwing 
at  the  theatre,  of  Pompilia's  appeal  to  the  Governor,  the 
Bishop,  and  the  old  priest,  of  Conti's  part  in  preparing  the 
flight  and  of  his  death,  possibly  by  poison  at  the  hands  of 
the  Franceschini,  of  the  arrest  at  Castelnuovo  and  of  Pom- 
pilia's drawing  the  sword  on  her  husband,  with  many  other 
matters. 

The  characterization  of  the  minor  characters  and  the 
more  obvious  play  of  motive  are  also  taken  essentially, 
though  with  suitable  amplification,  from  the  record. 

All  the  legal  aspects  of  the  intricate  series  of  criminal 
and  civil  suits  which  are  interwoven  in  the  story  are  taken 
from  the  book.  I  can  find  no  evidence  that  Browning  went 
beyond  the  book  to  gain  the  recondite  legal  lore  displayed  in 
the  poem,  particularly  in  the  monologues  of  the  lawyers, 
save  in  one  or  two  cases  when  he  erroneously  ascribed  Eng- 
lish legal  practice  to  the  Roman  procedure.  All  of  Arcan- 
geli's  law  Latin,  his  points  of  law,  his  quotations  and 
precedents,  with  trivial  exceptions,  are  taken  from  the  argu- 
ments of  the  real  lawyers.   We  have  here  an  illustration  of 

[zi] 


4> 


how  readily  a  man  of  genius  may  acquire  an  adequate  work- 
ing knowledge  of  some  highly  technical  field  for  the  pur- 
poses of  his  art. 

The  raw  material  of  fact  Browning  knew  and  used  thus 
scrupulously.  What  then  of  such  accuracy  as  a  basis  of 
creative  art?  Plainly  with  the  example  of  Shakespeare  be- 
fore us  we  can  assert  that  such  accuracy  is  a  minor  virtue 
in  the  artist.  It  is  one  way,  but  not  necessarily  the  only  or 
best  way,  of  dealing  with  material.  But  it  is  true  that  mod- 
ern critical  taste  requires  a  far  higher  degree  of  accuracy 
than  was  asked  in  Shakespeare's  day  in  dealing  artistically 
with  an  ascertainable  fact-basis.  With  books  of  reference 
easily  accessible  and  with  an  accurate  working  knowledge 
becoming  merely  a  matter  of  a  very  moderate  effort  on  the 
part  of  the  artist,  he  is  less  excusable  in  his  errors  of  fact. 
Ben  Jonson's  great  learning  could  not  bring  the  Sejanus 
and  Cataline  on  the  level  of  Julius  Caesar  and  Antony,  but 
Jonson's  learning  without  his  pedantry  might  easily  have 
been  carried  by  Shakespeare's  art  to  the  improvement  of  his 
art.  Stephen  PhilHps  even  if  he  had  Shakespeare's  peerless 
insight  into  the  human  heart  would  not  be  permitted  to  take 
imperial  liberties  with  history  to-day. 

But  whatever  the  general  law  of  art  in  this  matter,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  Browning's  grip  on  the  fact,  his  scrup- 
ulous truth-telling  are  important  in  estimating  his  mind  and 
art.  Now  that  word  *^truth"  is  in  fact  a  keyword  in  his 
own  explanation  of  the  making  of  his  poem.  Accuracy 
might  indeed  have  made  him  a  mere  dull  annalist,  and 
scrupulosity  has  no  wings.  But  as  preparation  for  the  final 
processes  of  imagination  truth  is  distinctly  valuable. 

We  have  dwelt  at  some  length  on  the  fact-basis  of  the 
Franceschini  story;  now  we  will  turn  to  consider  Brown- 
ing's creative  and  interpretative  reaction  thereupon — that 


power  of  personality  whereby  fact  is  transmuted  into  art, 
whereby  the  ingot  becomes  a  ring  "right  to  wear". 

But  here  is  the  finger  of  God,  a  flash  of  the  will  that  can, 
Existent  behind  all  laws,  that  made  them  and,  lo,  they  are! 

And  I  know  not  if,  save  in  this,  such  gift  be  allowed  to  man, 
That  out  of 

the  crude  bare  fact  of  life,  he  form  not  merely  new  fact 
and  digest  of  fact,  but  living,  breathing  character  and  ac- 
tion. Browning  himself  had  studied  thoughtfully  this  mys- 
terious power — man  in  the  exercise  of  Godlike  creative  will. 
And  as  he  deliberated  on  the  play  of  his  own  mind  upon  the 
old  yellow  book,  he  realized  more  fully  than  ever  before 
the  meaning  of  man's  creative  power.  He  accordingly  took 
many  lines  in  the  opening  book  of  the  poem  to  set  it  forth 
to  his  readers.  How  much  more  significant  this  minute 
dwelling  on  the  creative  processes  of  his  art  is  than  the  con- 
ventional invocation  of  the  Muses!  He  has  embodied  his 
thought  in  the  matter  in  a  figure — an  artificer  producing  an 
exquisitely  chased  gold  ring  by  aid  of  an  alloy.  The  figure 
of  course  breaks  down  if  pushed  too  far.  We  dwell  now 
only  on  its  central  thought — the  mingling  of  alloy  with  gold. 

From  the  book,  yes;  thence  bit  by  bit  I  dug 

The  lingot  truth,  that  memorable  day, 

Assayed  and  knew  my  piecemeal  gain  was  gold, — 

Yes;  but  from  something  else  surpassing  that, 

Something  of  mine  which,  mixed  up  with  the  mass, 

Made  it  bear  hammer  and  be  firm  to  file. 

I  fused  my  live  soul  and  that  inert  stuff. 
Before  attempting  smithcraft. 

Such  substance  of  me  interfused  the  gold. 

A  spirit  laughs  and  leaps  through  every  limb, 
And  lights  my  eye,  and  lifts  me  by  the  hair. 
Letting  me  have  my  will  with  these. 
The  life  in  me  abolished  the  death  of  things. 
Deep  calling  unto  deep, 

[23] 


Such  are  Browning's  various  expressions  of  his  own  per- 
sonal power  in  the  act  of  creation.  It  is  '*my  live  soul", 
"such  substance  of  me",  and  "the  life  in  me",  which,  as 
Browning  realized,  had  wrought  thus  creatively.  All  his 
varied  power  of  passion,  of  intellect,  of  spirit  with  all  his 
treasuries  of  memory  in  life,  in  art  and  in  books,  all  that 
constituted  Robert  Browning  the  man  he  was,  were  in- 
volved in  the  transmutation  of  the  lawyers'  case  into  a  poem. 
His  attitude  toward  man  and  woman,  his  regard  for  society 
and  institutions,  his  faith  in  God  and  in  the  moral  order  of 
the  world  cQme  intg^play^We  can  well  judge  of  Robert 
Browning  the  man,  in  his  essential  nature,  as  we  see  his  re- 
action in  spirit  upon  the  array  of  fact  he  found  in  the  old 
yellow  book.  This  subject,  however,  is  far  too  large  for  us 
to  dwell  on  it  here  at  length,  and  we  must  touch  only  cer- 
tain phases  of  the  question  as  related  to  the  characters  of 
Guido,  of  Caponsacchi,  and  of  Pompilia. 

What  then  of  the  personal  power  of  Browning  in  the  cre- 
ation of  Guido?  The  facts  of  Guido's  career  are  plain 
enough  in  the  book,  his  marriage  for  dowry,  his  brutality  to 
his  wife,  his  trickery  and  forgery  of  evidence  to  get  rid  of 
her,  his  quailing  before  Caponsacchi  at  Castelnuovo,  his  ig- 
noble pushing  of  the  adultery  charge,  and  finally  his  ghastly 
deed  of  murder.  In  spite  of  all  this,  good  society  in  Arezzo 
justified  Guido,  and  the  Bishop  turned  deaf  ear  to  Pom- 
pilia's  appeal.  All  this  grew  upon  the  spiritual  vision  of 
Robert  Browning  as  he  dwelt  not  sarcastically,  nor  satiri- 
cally, nor  formally,  but  in  grave  earnest,  on  the  scene.  For 
the  poet  saw  Guido  not  as  a  monster  nor  as  an  accidentally 
unfortunate  man,  but  as  the  hideous  outgrowth  of  a  self- 
seeking,  Christless  society,  in  which  nobility  was  no  longer 
a  spiritual  attribute  but  a  merchantable  asset  and  a  shield 
from  the  due  reward  of  dishonorable  acts;  in  which  mar- 
riage was  no  longer  a  sacrament  but  a  bargain ;  in  which  re- 


ligion  was  no  longer  worship  and  aspiration  but  institution- 
alism  built  into  selfish  and  self-gratifying  power.  Here  as 
always  Browning  was  ready  to  take  issue  with  heartless  re- 
spectability and  conformity  to  the  formal  code.  Guido  tears 
the  hypocritical  mask  from  this  respectability  as  he  finally 
raves  through  his  last  self-disclosure,  and  sears  as  with  a 
hot  iron  the  very  conditions  which  had  made  him.  Brown- 
ing saw  that  Guido's  associates  took  as  a  matter  of  course 
his  debauched  clerical  ambitions.  Nor  did  Guido's  friends 
have  any  abhorrence  of  his  wedding  a  thirteen  year  old 
child Jqr  money  and  turning  her  away  brutally  when  the^ 
money  escaped  him.^y£ut  Browning,  clear-eyed  to  see 
what  actually  happened,  was  afire  with  moral  indignation 
not  merely  at  Guido  but  at  the  conventionally  respectable 
world  which  firs^:  made  a  Guido  and  then  took  him  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course>^Vhat  next  of  Guido's  act  of  murder  and  his 
defensive  plea  of  injured  honor?  What  of  such  conven- 
tional honor,  which  was  a  shibboleth  in  Guido's  world  as  in 
certain  circles  to-day  ?  Browning  saw  each  step  of  the  crime 
and_uriderstood  Guido  from  his  own  standpoint.  He  saw 
how  the  long  suppressed  rage  and  hatelmrst  Torth  at  the  ap- 
parently opportune  moment  to  gain  his  crafty,  cruel  ends. 
He  saw  how  Guido  and  his  societ}^  understood_the  plea  of 
nC)Ble  birth  and  wounded  honor  to  be  defense of^vicious- 
nesSljy  subterfuge.  This  ruthless  slaughter  of  his  seven- 
teen year  old  wife,  the  two  weeks  mother  of  his  own  babe 
with  all  its  accompaniment  of  craft  and  brutality  is  stripped 
by  Browning  of  its  false  show  of  moral  resentment.  What 
then  of  the  outcome  for  such  a  soul  as  Guido's  ?  What  was 
there  beyond  ghastly  mannaia  forTiTm?  Did  Guido  die  with 
the  compassion  of  gallant  men,  as  the  old  letter  writer  says  ? 
Browning's  first  feeling  toward  Guido  was  probably  the  imr, 
pulse  of  chivalrous  indignation  in  CaponsaccHL^ 

^5] 


i 


I  think  he  will  be  found  ... 

Not  to  die  so  much  as  slide  out  of  life, 

Pushed  by  the  general  horror  and  common  hate 

Low,  lower  .  .  . 

out  of  the  ken  of  God. 
Or  care  of  man,  forever  and  evermore! 

But  the  feminine  element  in  Browning  spoke  from  the  lips 
of  Pompilia 

For  that  most  woeful  man  my  husband  once, 
*   *  * 

I  give  him  for  his  good  the  life  he  takes, 

iti    *  * 

We  shall  not  meet  in  this  world  nor  the  next, 
But  where  will  God  be  absent  ?    In  His  face 
Is  light,  but  in  His  shadow  healing  too: 
Let  Guido  touch  the  shadow  and  be  healed  ! 

But  Browning's  earnest  yearning  in  spirit  over  the  black- 
ness of  evil  in  Guido's  soul  expresses  itself  in  the  words  of 
the  Pope: 

So  may  the  truth  be  flashed  out  by  one  blow. 
And  Guido  see  one  instant  and  be  saved. 

And  finally  from  all  this  Browning  created  that  crowning 
moment — Guido,  glaring  in  wild  desperation  at  the  Abate 
and  Cardinal  as  they  crouch  in  the  prison  straw,  till  as  the 
Brotherhood  of  Death  intone  their  awful  Psalm  of  human 
supplication:  "Out  of  the  depths  have  I  cried  unto  Thee'*, 
he  shrieked  in  agony 

Abate, — Cardinal, — Christ, — Maria, — God, — 
Pompilia,  will  you  let  them  murder  me? 

All  the  masterpowers  of  Browning's  spirit  were  involved  in 
that  close,  so  different  from  the  tame  priestly  narrative  of 
the  Italian  pamphlet. 

But  Browning's  live  soul  is  even  more  manifest  in  his 

[a6] 


presentation  of  Caponsacchi.  We  know  little  of  him  from 
the  book.  His  one  act  in  the  record  is  the  escape  with  Pom- 
pilia — an  act  gravely  reprehensible  at  the  very  best  from 
the  standpoint  of  conventional  morality,  and  utterly  lacking 
in  due  priestly  discretion.  Then  there  is  his  recorded  dec- 
laration as  he  faced  Guido  "I  am  a  gallant  man,  and  have 
done  what  I  have  to  save  your  wife  from  death."  His  own 
affidavit  has  a  manly  ring  and  there  is  an  outburst  of  frank 
moral  indignation  when  one  of  the  lawyers  seems  to  cast  a 
suspicion  upon  Pompilia.  And  indeed  the  very  act  was  too 
perilous  a  breach  of  both  law  and  duty  to  have  been  under- 
taken in  mere  gallantry  or  bravado — we  inevitably  turn  to 
his  own  word  "it  was  the  duty  of  a  Christian."  What  then 
should  Browning  believe  of  the  Caponsacchi  thus  recorded  ? 
The  cynical  sneers  of  the  lawyers,  the  genuine  jealousy  of 
Guido,  the  probable  laughing  assurance  of  criminal  intrigue 
is  sensed  by  the  bystanders,  face  him.  Carlyle  felt  sure  that 
Caponsacchi  had  intrigued  with  Pompilia  through  passion. 
But  Browning's  attitude  grew  out  of  his  own  good  faith  in 
unselfish  chivalry  and  unspotted  puri^.  This  is  far  more 
convincing  than  the  purity  and  chivalry  of  Tennyson's  King 
Arthur.  —Browning  also  knew  very  well  that  such  a  char- 
acter would  be  quite  unintelligible  to  many  who  came  near 
him,  and  they  would  interpret  him  according  to  their  de- 
based ideals.  Furthermore  Caponsacchi  was  created  in  part 
as  a  parallel  to  St.  George,  the  type  of  lofty  Christian  chiv- 
alry. He  is  a  "soldier-saint",  rescuing  a  distressed  maiden, 
and  it  is  "consistent  with  his  priesthood,  worthy  Christ," 
that  he  endeavored  to  save  Pompilia.  ^  But  still  more  re- 
markable is  Browning's  conception  of  how  this  saintliness 
came  into  being.  It  had  not  come  mysteriously  as  in  Ar- 
thur, nurtured  by  a  Merlin  and  the  fair  Queens  who  em- 
body all  virtue.  But  Caponsacchi  had  entered  the  same  great 
Church  as  Abate  Paolo  and  Guido,  had,  after  a  moment  of. 

[^7] 


compunction,  become  an  easy  going,  fashionable  priest,  de- 
voting himself  to  society  and  performing  his  religious  du- 
ties perfunctorily.  Suddenly  on  this  gay,  untroubled  life 
dawned  the  "sad,  beautiful,  strange  face"  of  Pompilia,  and 
in  a  moment  the  undeveloped  better  nature  was  called  forth. 
A  new  life  was  born  within  him,  a  new  taste,  a  new  motive. 
Browning  has  hardly  attained  a  greater  creative  achieve- 
ment than  this  picture  of  the  calling  forth  of  the  **soldier- 
saint"  from  the  gallant,  courtly  priest.  To  this  newborn 
Caponsacchi  the  rescuing  of  Pompilia  became  a  transcen- 
dent duty,  in  spite  of  peril  and  disgrace  for  himself.  But 
Browning  shows  himself  again  in  his  conception  of  the  per- 
sonal attitude  of  this  modern  St.  George  toward  the  res- 
cued maiden.  The  easy  conventional  way  would  be  to  say 
he  had  loved  her  "as  the  world  calls  love",  and  had  eloped 
to  gain  entire  freedom  with  her.  Such  is  the  insinuation 
and  charge  of  the  lawyers  in  the  Book.  But  there  is  in  fact 
no  evidence  that  Caponsacchi  had  any  personal  regard  for 
/  Pompilia  other  than  highminded  Christian  pity  for  her  des- 
perate plight.  Browning  might  have  rested  on  this.  But  he 
saw  more  truly.  The  austere  purity  of  an  Arthur  might 
thus  rescue  a  maiden  in  cold  blood.  But  Browning  knew 
that  the  gallant  young  priest,  even  if  he  were  irreproachably 
pure,  could  not  help  being  stirred  deeply  by  the  spiritual  ef- 
fluence of  Pompilia's  character  which  is  shown  so  plainly  in 
the  affidavit  of  Fra  Celestino.  She  would  become  an  em- 
bodiment of  Madonna,  long  cherished  in  spiritual  vision  but 
now  incarnate  before  him.  He  adored  her  as  sacredly,  as 
purely  as  he  did  the  Virgin.  Such  a  love  in  Spirit  had  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  feeding  passion  of  the  body.  This  was 
the  love  which  Browning  in  previous  poems  had  pronounced 
"best"  and  the  "prize  of  life".  Pompilia  and  Caponsacchi, 
without  a  taint  in  the  flesh,  without  a  flaw  in  their  duties 

[z8] 


as  wife  and  priest,  love  as  the  angels  love,  putting  forth 
their  high  spiritual  natures  in  mutual  responsiveness. 

Through  such  souls  alone 
God  stooping  shows  sufficient  of  His  light 
For  us  i'  the  dark  to  rise  by.    And  I  rise. 

This  becomes  in  fact  the  crowning  creation  of  Browning's 
series  of  love  poems. 

We  must  still  add  a  few  words  as  regards  Browning,  the 
creator,  in  his  picture  of  Pompilia.  Browning  declared  with 
feeling:  ''She  is  just  as  I  found  her  in  the  book."  But  this 
statement  must  be  modified.  Except  for  the  affidavit  I  have 
read  above,  the  book  gives  little  of  her  character,  though  it 
tells  her  outward  story  plainly  enough.  Browning  was 
right  in  holding  fast  to  the  significance  of  Fra  Celestino's 
words.  They  are  convincing  in  spite  of  the  surprise  on  dis- 
covering a  saint  in  such  untoward  circumstances.  Heredity 
and  environment  will  not  explain  Pompilia.  In  fact  Brown- 
ing seldom  pays  any  attention  to  these  great  laws  of  life. 
Pompilia  was  a  flower  blooming  among  the  filth  and  shards 
of  the  world.  Her  shameful  birth,  her  nurture  by  Violante, 
the  awful  misery  of  her  wifehood,  her  ignorance — none  of 
these  can  account  for  Pompilia,  nor  does  Browning  care  to 
account  for  her. 

See  how  this  mere  chance-sown,  cleft-nursed  seed, 

That  sprang  up  by  the  wayside  'neath  the  foot 

Of  the  enemy,  this  breaks  all  into  blaze, 

Spreads  itself,  one  wide  glory  of  desire 

To  incorporate  the  whole  great  sun  it  loves. 

*   *  * 

My  rose,  I  gather  for  the  breast  of  God. 
Still  more  significant  is  Browning's  treatment  of  her  moth- 
erhood. The  book  contains  the  bare  fact  of  the  birth  of  her 
little  boy  Gaetano  and  of  his  removal  to  a  nurse.  But 
Browning  has  endowed  her  with  all  the  richer  spiritual 
treasures  of  maternity,  the  first  intimations,  that  "light  his 

[^9] 


unborn  face"  sent  ahead  to  illume  her  darkness,  her  sense 
of  duty  to  escape  from  the  hellish  misery  of  the  Frances- 
chini  palace,  the  faith  in  God  generated  by  the  new  sense  of 
the  value  of  life,  the  new  sense  of  Christmas : 

I  never  realized  God's  birth  before — 
How  He  grew  likest  God  in  being  born. 
This  time  I  felt  like  Mary,  had  my  babe 
Lying  a  little  on  my  breast  like  hers. 

And  this  culminates  in  the  serene  faith  with  which,  when 
dying,  she  rests  her  babe  in  the  arms  of  God.  We  have  in 
Pompilia  perhaps  the  finest  study  of  maternity  in  English 
poetry.  In  several  places  she  is  compared  with  the  Virgin, 
and  Browning's  conception  of  Mary  the  mother  of  Jesus 
along  with  his  intimate  and  devoted  sense  of  the  maternal 
in  his  wife  were  foundation  for  this  interpretation.  Let  me 
call  your  attention  also  to  his  fine  words  on  the  duties  of 
motherhood  in  Ivan  Ivanovitch.  It  is  Browning  again, 
rather  than  the  mere  data  of  the  book,  who  lets  us  see  Pom- 
pilia during  the  two  cruel  days  of  delay  in  the  arrangement 
of  the  flight.  What  was  the  imperilled  child-wife  doing 
while  Caponsacchi  was  rising  through  spiritual  rebirth  into 
new  possibilities?  She  was  putting  forth  that  "Faith  held 
fast  despite  the  plucking  fiend" 

And,  all  day,  I  sent  prayer  like  incense  up 

To  God  the  strong,  God  the  beneficent, 

God  ever  mindful  in  all  strife  and  strait, 

Who,  for  our  own  good,  makes  the  need  extreme, 

Till  at  last  he  puts  forth  might  and  saves. 

How  true  this  is  to  the  spirit  of  Fra  Celestino's  affidavit! 
Let  me  add  one  more  illustration  of  Browning's  creative  al- 
loy. Guido  secured  admission  to  assassinate  the  Comparini 
by  using  Caponsacchi's  name?  Were  the  parents  conniving 
criminally  in  an  intrigue  between  the  lovers?  Such  is  the 
interpretation  of  one  of  the  real  lawyers.    Guido  in  mock 

[3°] 


righteousness  declares  it  was  a  test  to  see  if  he  might  not 
finally  get  some  vindication  for  his  wife's  innocence.  But 
Pompilia  in  the  poem  declares 

It  was  the  name  of  him  I  sprang  to  meet 
When  came  the  knock,  the  summons  and  the  end, 
"My  great  heart,  my  strong  hand  are  back  again!" 
I  would  have  sprung  to  these  beckoning  across 
Murder  and  hell  gigantic  and  distinct 
O'  the  threshold,  posted  to  exclude  me  heaven: 
He  is  ordained  to  call  and  I  to  come! 

All  Robert  Browning  knew  of  unstained  womanhood,  all 
he  had  learned  of  her  essential  spiritual  nature  in  the  fif- 
teen years  of  wedded  life,  came  to  flower  in  this  Pompilia, 
the  waif  of  a  forgotten  crime.  And  Browning  himself 
speaks  in  tender  benediction  over  her  in  the  words  of  his 
Pope 

Everywhere 
I  see  in  the  world  the  intellect  of  man. 
That  sword,  the  energy  his  subtle  spear, 
The  knowledge  which  defends  him  like  a  shield — 
Everywhere ;  but  they  make  not  up,  I  think, 
The  marvel  of  a  soul  like  thine,  earth's  flower 
She  holds  up  to  the  softened  gaze  of  God! 

Finally  a  few  words  concerning  the  Pope.  The  book 
states  that  final  appeal  was  made  in  Guido's  case  to  Pope 
Innocent,  who,  after  three  days'  deliberation,  ordered  the 
sentence  to  proceed.  Browning  had  also  learned  from  his- 
tory of  the  benevolence,  the  self-denial,  the  high  purpose  of 
this  great  Pope.  But  the  poet  saw,  beyond  all  this  fact,  the 
possibility  of  introducing  in  him  a  final  deciding  voice 
among  the  many  speakers.  Over  all  this  welter  of  sordid 
purpose  and  of  cruel  act,  he  presided  as  the  living  embodi- 
ment of  Divine  authority  and  justice.  He  was  more  than 
a  wise  old  man,  judging  by  the  conventional  canons  of 

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his  day.  He  saw  in  absolute  vision,  not  merely  the  facts  of 
the  case  in  hand,  but  the  church  and  the  society  which  lay 
behind  it  all.  Facing  God  and  Eternity,  he  puts  aside  his 
official  robes  to  test  his  own  inner  vision — can  he  see  light 
through  all  this  sin?  can  he  judge  unerringly  at  last?  In 
this  spirit  the  Pope  stoops  tenderly  to  Pompilia,  he  cheers 
the  chivalrous,  but  unworldly-wise  leap  of  Caponsacchi  to 
the  rescue.  Last  he  faces  the  problem  whether  he,  as  a 
mortal  man,  dare  give  sentence  against  the  cowering  wretch 
before  him,  whom  he  may  thrust  into  the  blackness  of  dark- 
ness forever. 

Something  like  a  cheer 
Leaves  the  lips  free  to  be  benevolent 

He  bows  the  head  while  the  lips  move  in  prayer, 
Writes  some  three  brief  lines,  signs  and  seals  the  same 

with  the  hope 

So  may  the  truth  be  flashed  out  by  one  blow, 
And  Guido  see,  one  instant,  and  be  saved. 

In  conclusion  I  hardly  need  add  that  Browning's  person- 
ality has  given  significance  to  all  that  is  best  in  the  poem. 
His  assets  within  himself  were  far  superior  to  any  such 
chance  gains.  It  is  true  he  used  his  raw  material  with 
scrupulous  accuracy  as  far  as  it  went.  But  he  knew,  as  ev- 
ery artist  must,  when  to  leave  his  materials  behind  and  soar 
into  the  ideal.  And  perhaps  the  best  value  of  the  study  of 
the  book  is  to  reassert  the  liberty  and  vitality  of  Robert 
Browning  as  a  creative  master. 

CHARLES  W.  HODELL, 

Goucher  College,  Baltimore. 

Delivered  before  the    Boston  Browning  Society    Jan.  19, 
1909. 


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